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Chapter VI

The Uncontested Master’s Rashomon and Other Stories

Akutagawa Ryunosuke opened a hole in our consciousness. We

circled the edge of this abyss, peering into its depths.

- Yokomitsu Riichi

The name Akutagawa is a big one in Japanese literature, especially to

Kurosawa fans. Akutagawa’s story “Rashomon” was used as the setting for the

famed 1950 film, even though it is his story “In a Grove” that provides the direct

template for the film. Dying by suicide at the age of thirty-five in 1927,

Akutagawa wrote well over one hundred short stories many of which are praised

for their lyricism.

The term short story usually refers to the modern short story, which

evolved out of earlier types of fiction in prose and verse. The earliest ancestors of

short stories are ancient tales, simple stories that date back to Egyptian writings

that are 6,000 years old. Another early form was the fable, such as those of the

6th-century-BC Greek slave Aesop, each with a lesson to be expressed. There

were also popular Greek and Asian stories of magical transformations, many with

moralistic, satirical, and pure entertainment aims, which were gathered and retold

by the Roman several centuries ago.

Tales in great variety flourished in Western Europe during the middle

Ages. Romance tales, in prose or verse, were common in France. Many of the best

stories of the middle Ages were preserved and refined in two 14th-century works,

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The Decameron by Italian prose writer Giovanni Boccaccio and The Canterbury

Tales by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. They retold fables, epics about beasts,

example of religious tales, romances, fabliaux - ribald tale and legends.

When the short story emerged as a genre in the 19th century, it was seen

as something totally new and modern. Popular and literary magazines

increasingly began to publish short stories that often reflected the dominant

literary trends of the day. Till then the primary focus of most stories had been on

the plot.

Short stories are most often a form of fiction writing, with the most widely

published form of short stories being genre fiction such as science fiction, horror

fiction, detective fiction, and so on. The short story has also come to embrace

forms of non-fiction such as travel writing, prose poetry and postmodern variants

of fiction and non-fiction such as ficto-criticism or new journalism.

Short stories are fictional works depicting one character’s inner conflict or

conflict with others, usually having one thematic focus. They generally produce a

single, focused emotional and intellectual response in the reader. Novels, by

contrast, usually depict conflicts among many characters developed through a

variety of episodes, stimulating a complexity of responses in the reader. The short

story form ranges from very short stories which run in length from one to four

pages, to novellas that can easily be 100 pages long and exhibit characteristics of

both the short story and the novel. Literary short fiction employs complex

techniques to depict the often-irresolvable dilemmas of the human predicament.

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The basic elements of the short story include setting -time and place,

conflict, character, and theme. The reader follows the main character or

protagonist in a conflict with another character or antagonist or in an internal

conflict with some antagonistic psychological or spiritual force. Characters range

from familiar stereotypes, such as the aggressive businessman and the lonely

housewife, to archetypal characters, such as the rebel, the scapegoat, the alter ego,

and those engaged in some sort of search.

The subject of a short story is often mistaken for its theme. Common

subjects for modern short fiction include race, ethnic status, gender, class, and

social issues such as poverty, drugs, violence, and divorce. These subjects allow

the writer to comment upon the larger theme that is the heart of the fictional work.

Some of the major themes of 20th-century short stories, as well as longer forms of

fiction, are human isolation, alienation, and personal trauma, such as anxiety; love

and hate; male-female relationships; family and the conflict of generations;

initiation from innocence to experience; friendship and brotherhood; illusion and

reality; self-delusion and self-discovery; the individual in conflict with society’s

institutions; mortality; spiritual struggles; and even the relationship between life

and art.

The art of the short story employs the techniques of point of view, style,

plot and structure, and a wide range of devices that stimulate emotional,

imaginative, and intellectual responses in the reader. The writer’s choice and

control of these techniques determines the reader’s overall experience.

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Among the ways of looking at the subjects, themes, and art of the short

story is to review the astonishing range and varieties of types of stories. These

include tales, fantasies, humor and satire, character studies, confession,

biography, history, education, religion, and local color types.

Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually, a short story

will focus on only one incident, have a single plot, a single setting, a limited

number of characters, and cover a short period of time.

A classic definition of a short story is that one must be able to be read it in

one sitting, a point most notably made in Edgar Allan Poe's essay The Philosophy

of Composition of 1846. Other definitions place the maximum word length at

7,500 words. In contemporary usage, the term short story most often refers to a

work of fiction no longer than 20,000 words and no shorter than 1,000.

Stories shorter than 1,000 words fall into the flash fiction genre. Fiction

surpassing the maximum word length parameters of the short story falls into the

areas of novelettes, novellas, or novels.

“Rashomon and Other Stories” contains six brief stories. “In a Grove”

presents a crime from five perspectives. “Rashomon” is an eerie tale of a

desperate old woman surviving by pilfering the hair of corpses. “Yam Gruel” has

a pathetic central character whose single ambition is to eat his fill of yam gruel.

“The Martyr” tells a tale of virtue and renunciation. “Kesa and Morita” deals with

questions of perception, infatuation and love. “The Dragon” questions the

reliability of memory. The themes covered in all the six stories are perceptions of

reality and illusion, intent, meaning and a deep philosophical insight.

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The story “In a Grove” tells the story of a crime, all from different points

of view. Its structure is by far the most memorable of the stories and each side has

a distinct voice, separate from the others. The story “Rashomon” deals with a

samurai servant who must choose between living an honorable life that would

ultimately lead him to starvation, or to save himself by becoming a thief. The

story end with a cliché.: Beyond this was only darkness…unknowing and

unknown.

“Yam Gruel” has a bit of humor in it, as it deals with a low rank samurai

named Goi. In the description the narrator notes, Goi was a very plain-looking

man. His hollow cheeks made his chin seem unusually long. His lips…if we

mentioned his every striking feature, there would be no end. He was extremely

homely and sloppy in appearance. Throughout the tale he yearns for a delicacy

called Yam gruel. It’s an odd tale, with some insight; a man sometimes devotes

his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at

this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.

“The Martyr” is set in the 16th century and involves an orphan raised by

Jesuits and there is a classic twist in this tale when questions pertaining to

child paternity arise. “Kesa and Morito” is told via two different

monologues. A man who feels neither love nor hate must kill someone he

does not hate at the request of a lover he does not love. This is the most

soap-operatic of the tales, though the structure is interesting enough and

clichés are undermined in such a way that offers just the right amount of

freshness. Lastly, “The Dragon” involves a priest who plans a trick against

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the priests of Nara because they are habitually making fun of his nose. He

informs them that a dragon shall ascend to heaven. The story appears silly

but also has satiric underlining lessons involving gullibility and belief.

Over the last decade of Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s brief literary life from

1892 to 1927, his fiction exhibited signs of the writer's growing distrust

toward the value of the literary form. The culmination of this

disillusionment is reflected in both the disintegration of his writing form

into a collection of fragmentary episodes in “A Fool's Life”, written in

1927 and in the writer's own suicide that same year. Earlier works in

Akutagawa's career point to the writer's growing anxiety about the literary

form, particularly the possibility of objective narration.

One of his most well known stories, “In a Grove” written in 1922, is based

on a 12th century Japanese tale in which a couple is attacked by a bandit on the

side of the road. Akutagawa incorporated the main event of the story but adapted

the plotline to engage in the problem of objective narration. The story is separated

into several contradictory accounts of the same event-the rape of a woman and the

murder of her husband. This epistemological inquiry has been adapted by

filmmaker Akira Kurosawa in Rashomon (1950). Apparently, the film, like its

literary predecessor, appears to assert the impossibility of objective truth.

Yet, Rashomon ultimately reveals a desire for objectivity in its presentation of the

narration. This move towards objectivity demonstrates the filmmaker's attempt to

transcend Akutagawa's exhausted modern project and search for a rebirth of

artistic representation.

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Detachment was a key strategy to Akutagawa. As a narrator, he liked to be

unseen, impersonal; he cultivated the oblique glance. When he did enter his

stories, it was usually in the slight role of the observer or the suave self-effacing

compiler. Old tales and legends, historical settings of the remote Heian Period or

the feudal ages which followed -these he used not to turn his elaborate erudition

to account, but to enrich and extend the implications of his themes, and to

maintain aesthetic distance. It suited his ironic taste to play the illusionist who

leaves his audience staring blankly into a mirror.

The stories have a dazzling and perhaps deceptive sheen. Superficial

critics called Akutagawa precious, or decadent, or dismissed him as a fatiguingly

clever dilettante. Unprepared for the strength of his later satires, they supposed

him to care only for the superb texture of his prose. Translation protects us from

the seductions of this style, yet encourages a similar error, since the nuances of

Akutagawa's prose are what convey the essence of his thought. Like Natsume

Soseki and Hori gai, whom he admired, Akutagawa used his language delicately,

precisely, and with a richness enhanced by knowledge of several literatures. It is

significant that his first published writings were translations of Yeats and Anatole

France.

He remarked once that words must yield more than the bare dictionary

meanings; he had a poet's feeling for their shapes and flavors, as well as their

ambiguities, and he combined them with such freshness and economy that his

phrasing never lacks distinction. Like Picasso, Akutagawa often varied his style,

but always, whatever the particular blend of vernacular and mandarin, he

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controlled it with scrupulous precision. A master of tone, he gave his stories a

cool classic surface, colored but never marred by the wit and warmth underlying

that perfect glaze. The composure of his style is undisturbed even by vivid accents

of the sordid or the bizarre.

After his death Akutagawa was largely neglected in Japan by critics who

considered his style affected and his poetic approach to fiction overly refined—as

evidenced, for example, in his subtle characterization. However, more recent

commentators have found that Akutagawa's stories are skillfully written and

demonstrate scope unrestricted to his own time and culture, and for that reason

widened the dimensions of their genre and helped make short stories a more

important part of Japanese literature.

Through his early work as a translator and his later concern with important

critical issues, he helped introduce and foster the tradition of the European novel

in his own country, where, according to some critics, the novel form might

otherwise have degenerated.

Far from being dismayed by the differences between East and West,

Akutagawa used them as sources for both the content and spirit of his work; the

result was a significant achievement in the development of modern Japanese

literature.

Howard Hibbett writes about Akutagawa,

What he did was to question the values of his society, dramatize

the complexities of human psychology, and study, with a Zen taste

for paradox, the precarious balance of illusion and reality. He

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developed a variety of techniques—from realism to fantasy,

symbolism to surrealism—and used all of them in the search for

poetic truth.

The short story “In a Grove” first appeared in the January 1922 edition of

the Japanese literature monthly Shincho. Akira Kurosawa used this story as the

basis for his award-winning movie Rashomon. The story is often praised as being

among the greatest in Japanese literature.

“In a Grove” is an early modernist short story consisting of seven varying

accounts of the murder of a samurai, Kanazawa no Takehiro, whose corpse has

been found in a bamboo forest near Kyoto. Each section simultaneously clarifies

and perplexes what the reader knows about the murder, eventually creating a

complex and contradictory vision of the event that questions humanity's ability or

willingness to perceive and transmit objective truth.

Akutagawa’s “In a Grove” tells the story of a man and his wife who are

joined by a robber on a journey. In this story, after the wife is raped, the man

dies, the robber is captured, and the wife, having tried unsuccessfully to commit

suicide, takes refuge in a Buddhist temple. The story is made up of the narratives

of seven different characters, beginning with four brief narratives by people

involved in discovering the crime and ending with longer narratives by the three

main characters (the dead man speaking through a medium). Each of the three

main characters claims to have killed the husband; their stories are completely

conflicting. The reader is left not knowing where truth may lie.

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Akutagawa's influences for this story may have come from several

different sources:

• A story from the classic Japanese collection Konjaku Monogatarishu: In

the 23rd story of the 29th volume—The Tale Of The Bound Man Who

Was Accompanying His Wife to Tanba—a man is tied to a tree in a

bamboo grove and forced to watch helplessly as his wife gets raped by a

young thief, who has stolen all of their belongings.

• The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce: a short story about the murder of a

woman, as told by her husband and herself through a medium, and

introduced by their son.

• The Ring and the Book by Robert Browning, a narrative poem based on

the true story about a murder told in 12 different ways.

The story opens with the account of a woodcutter who has found a man's

body in the woods. The woodcutter reports that man died of a single sword slash

to the chest, and that the trampled leaves around the body showed there had been

a violent struggle, but otherwise lacked any significant evidence as to what

actually happened. There were no weapons nearby, and no horses—only a single

piece of rope, a comb and a lot of blood.

Yes, Sir. Certainly, it was I who found the body. This morning, as

usual, I went to cut my daily quota of cedars, when I found the

body in a grove in a hollow in the mountains. The exact location?

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About 150 meters off the Yamashina stage road. It’s an out of the

way grove of bamboo and cedars.

…...Little did I expect that he would meet such a fate. Truly human

life is an evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning. My

words are inadequate to express my sympathy for him. (19 -20)

The next account is delivered by a traveling Buddhist priest. He says that

he met the man, who was accompanied by a woman on horseback, on the road,

around noon the day before the murder. The man was carrying a sword, a bow

and a black quiver. All of these, along with the woman's horse, a tall, short-maned

palomino, were missing when the woodcutter discovered the body.

The man that I arrested? He is a notorious brigand called

Tajomaru. When I arrested him, he had fallen off his horse. He was

groaning on the bridge at Awataguchi. The time? It was in the

early hours of last night. For the record, I might say that the other

day I tried to arrest him, but unfortunately he escaped. He was

wearing a dark blue silk kimono and a large plain sword. And, as

you see, he got a bow and arrows somewhere. You say that this

bow and these arrows look like the ones owned by the dead man?

Then Tajomaru must be the murderer. (21)

The next person to testify is a homen a released prisoner working under

contract to the police. He has captured an infamous criminal named Tajomaru.

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Tajomaru was injured when thrown from a tall, short-maned palomino horse, and

he is carrying a bow and a black quiver, which do not belong to his usual arsenal.

This proves, he says, that Tajomaru was the perpetrator. Tajomaru was not

carrying the dead man's sword, however.

Yes, sir, that corpse is the man who married my daughter. He does

not come from Kyoto. He was a samurai in the town of Kokufu in

the province of Wakasa. His name was Kanazawa no Takehiko,

and his age was twenty-six. He was of a gentle disposition, so I am

sure he did nothing to provoke the anger of others. (22)

The next testimony is from an old woman, who identifies herself as the

mother of the missing girl. Her daughter is a beautiful, strong-willed 19-year-old

named Masago, married to Kanazawa no Takehiro—a 26-year-old samurai from

Wakasa. Her daughter, she says, has never been with a man other than Takehiro.

She begs the police to find her daughter.

I killed him, but not her. Where’s she gone? I can’t tell. Oh, wait a

minute. No torture can make me confess what I don’t know. Now

things have come to such a head, I won’t keep anything from you.

(23)

Next, Tajomaru confesses. He says that he met them on the road in the

forest, and upon first seeing Masago, decided that he was going to rape her.

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Telling you in this way, no doubt I seem a crueler man than you.

But that’s because you didn’t see her face. Especially her burning

eyes at that moment. As I saw her eye to eye, I wanted to make her

my wife even if I were to be struck by lightning. I wanted to make

her my wife….. this single desire filled my mind. This was not

only lust, as you might think. At that time if I’d had no other desire

than lust, I’d surely not have minded knocking her down and

running away. Then I wouldn’t have stained my sword with his

blood. But the moment I gazed at her face in the dark grove, I

decided not to there without killing him. (26)

In order to rape Masago unhindered, he separated the couple, luring

Takehiro into the woods with the promise of buried treasure. He then stuffed his

mouth full of leaves, tied him to a tree and fetched Masago. When Masago saw

her husband tied to the tree, she pulled a dagger from her bosom and tried to stab

Tajōmaru, but he knocked the knife out of her hand, and he had his way with her.

Originally, he had no intention of killing the man, he claims, but after the rape,

she begged him to either kill her husband or kill himself—she could not live if

two men knew her shame. She would leave with the last man standing. Tajōmaru

did not wish to kill Takehiro in a cowardly manner, so he untied him and they had

a swordfight. During the duel, Masago fled. Tajōmaru dispatched the man and

took the man's sword, bow, and quiver, as well as the woman's horse. He says that

he sold the sword before he was captured by the bounty hunter.

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The second-to-last account is that of Masago:

The man in the blue silk kimono, after forcing me to yield to him,

laughed mockingly as he looked at my bound husband. How

horrified my husband must have been! But no matter how hard he

struggled in agony, the rope cut into him all the more tightly. In

spite of myself I ran stumblingly towards his side. Or rather I tried

to run towards him, but the man instantly knocked me down. Just

at that moment I saw an indescribable light in my husband’s eyes.

Something beyond expression… his eyes make me shudder even

now. That instantaneous look of my husband, who couldn’t speak a

word, told me all his heart. The flash in his eyes was neither anger

nor sorrow…. Only a cold light, a look of loathing. More struck by

the look in his eyes than by the blow of the thief, I called out in

spite of myself and fell unconscious. (27-28)

According to her, after the rape, Tajōmaru fled, and her husband, still tied

to the tree, looked at her with great disdain. She was ashamed that she had been

raped, and no longer wished to live, but she wanted him to die with her. He

agreed, or so she believed—he couldn't actually say anything because his mouth

was still stuffed full of leaves—and she plunged her dagger into his chest. She

then cut the rope that bound Takehiro, and ran into the forest, whereupon she

attempted to commit suicide numerous times, she said, but her spirit was too

strong to die. Of all of the accounts of the crime, the woman's is arguably the least

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believable, and in great discordance with the other two. At the end of her

confession, she weeps.

The final account comes from Takehiro's ghost, as delivered through a

spirit medium:

I raised my exhausted body from the root of the cedar. In front of

me there was shining the small sword which my wife had dropped.

I took it up and stabbed it into my breast. A bloody lump rose to

my mouth, but I didn’t feel any pain. When my breast grew cold,

everything was as silent as the dead in their graves. What profound

silence! Not a single bird-note was head in the sky over this grave

in the hollow of the mountains. Only a lonely light lingered on the

cedars and mountain. By and by the light gradually grew fainter,

till the cedars and bamboo were lost to view. Lying there, I was

enveloped in deep silence.

Then someone crept up to me. I tried to see who it was. But

darkness had already been gathering around me. Someone…. That

someone drew the small sword softly out of my breast in its

invisible hand. At the same time once more blood flowed into my

mouth. And once and for all I sank down into the darkness of

space. (32-33)

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The ghost says that after the rape, Tajomaru persuaded Masago to leave

her husband and become his own wife, which she agreed to do under one

condition: He would have to kill Takehiro. Tajomaru became enraged at the

suggestion, kicked her to the ground, and asked Takehiro if he should kill the

dishonorable woman. Hearing this, Masago fled into the forest. Tajōmaru then cut

Takehiro's bonds and ran away. Takehiro grabbed Masago's fallen dagger and

plunged it into his chest. Shortly before he died, he sensed someone creep up to

him and steal the dagger from his chest. Throughout, it is obvious that he is

furious at his wife.

In the story the facts which remain unquestionable are Tajomaru led the

couple into the forest as he said. Takehiro is dead. Tajomaru raped Masago.

Tajomaru stole Takehiro's bow and quiver, as well as the woman's horse. In each

of the accounts, Masago wishes Takehiro dead, although the details vary. Masago

and Tajomaru did not leave together.

The differences between the characters' stories range from the trivial to the

fundamental. There are various discrepancies between the characters' testimonies,

namely: The comb mentioned by the woodcutter is not mentioned by any of the

other characters. The "violent struggle" that trampled the leaves, mentioned by the

woodcutter, seems to occur only in Tajomaru's version of the story—the

swordfight. The woodcutter also claims that the man was killed by a single sword

slash across the chest, but in both Masago's and Takehiro's versions of the story,

he was killed by a dagger thrust to the chest.

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The woodcutter claims that Takehiro was wearing a Kyoto-style hat called

a sabi-eboshi; however Masago's mother says that he was not from Kyoto. We

know that the author wanted to draw significance to this fact, because he

specifically had the police investigator ask her if Takehiro was from Kyoto. The

traveling priest says that he clearly remembers that there were more than 20

arrows in the man's quiver. The fugitive hunter says that there were only 17.

Tajomaru does not mention how Masago's dagger disappeared from the crime

scene.

In Tajomaru's and Takehiro's accounts, Masago and Tajomaru have a long

conversation after the rape, after which, she is willing to leave with Tajōmaru, so

long as her husband is dead. Masago's account omits this completely. Masago

does not mention how Takehiro's sword disappeared from the crime scene. It

seems unlikely that Masago would fail at suicide so many times, particularly

considering the first method she says tried: driving her dagger into her neck.

Masago says that Takehiro was repulsed by her after the rape. This is not true

according to the other accounts. From Takehiro's story, it is clear that he is furious

at her, but he claims that this is because she asked Tajomaru to kill him. In

Tajomaru's version, he still loves her so much that he is willing to fight to the

death for her.

Takehiro introduces a new and unlikely character: the person who stole

the dagger from his chest, conveniently, mere seconds before his death. Masago

and Takehiro claim that Tajomaru violently kicked her after the rape. Tajomaru

does not mention this.

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Ultimately we come to the brief conclusion that every character says at

least one thing that is refuted by another.

The name of the story “In a Grove” has become an idiom in Japan, and is

used to signify a situation where no conclusion can be drawn, because evidence is

insufficient or contradictory. Similar terms include - In the dark and In the fog.

Akutagawa excelled in examining the darker side of humanity in his

writings. On analyzing all the characters in the story “In a Grove”, one realizes

that each character has their own agenda; hence, each person gives a different

account of the story. Also, an important aspect of the story deals with truth.

Akutagawa challenges the reader to ponder the age old question, what is the truth?

Akutagawa using his literary genius leaves the reader to struggle to understand the

motivations of the characters.

Akutagawa never makes it clear in the story “In a Grove”, as to who

committed the crime. We are also kept wondering as to what does each person

gain by taking responsibility. Tajomaru claims to have murdered the samurai. The

opening lines of his testimony make it clear that the police commissioner will

have him tortured if he does not speak, so Tajomaru prepares to tell him a good

story. Further, he seems evasive when it comes to the whereabouts of the girl, so

he may be attempting to mask his reluctance to discuss her with the overstated

story of the murder.

Finally, he seems certain that he will be executed, so he wishes the

maximum penalty which will, no doubt, add to his legendary status as the

notorious brigand called Tajomaru. Killing a highly-trained samurai warrior in a

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fair fight in a contest for the hand of a beautiful woman would certainly be a path

to a reputation that would endure even after his execution. The woman confesses

that she murdered her husband, but perhaps she does so to add believability to her

claim that she also attempted to commit suicide. The warrior confesses that he

committed suicide with his wife's small sword. This is certainly a better story than

being murdered with a single sword stroke while being tied to a tree. The point

one comes to realize while analyzing the story is that all of the seven testimonies

seem to be filled with oddities and inconsistencies.

The Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory defines Modernism

as:

Modernism is a comprehensive but vague term for a movement

that began to get under way in the closing years of the 19th c. and

which has had a wide influence internationally during much of the

20th c. Some theorists suggest that the movement was at its height

during the 1920s while others contend that it is not actually over.

As far as literature is concerned, modernism reveals a breaking

away from established rules, traditions and conventions, fresh

ways of looking at man's position and function in the universe and

many (in some cases remarkable) experiments in form and style. It

is particularly concerned with language and how to use it as—

representational or otherwise.

Akutagawa has abandoned the omniscient narrator in favour of a more

distant and objective style. His style gives the narrative as a collection of

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testimonies. According to the definition of modernism, Akutagawa has

experimented in form and the modernist reaction against positive knowledge. The

form here is a reflection of the Buddhist theme of the uncertainty of the world.

One can see a contrasting view between Akutagawa’s ambiguity and Kurosawa's

rendering of definitive version of events. The film Rashomon, end with the sun

burst and baby adoption in the end, this appears forced and this is contrary to

Akutagawa's ending in the story “In a Grove”, which portrays dark vision. It is

helpful to point out, however that Kurosawa produced his film for an audience

which was already beaten down by the hardships of war.

Fig. 15. The film Rashomon. Picture from bostonist.com

Akutagawa unravels how the tradition of religion gets tarnished in his

story. First there is the merest suggestion that the Buddhist priest is a bit more

attached to the objects and inhabitants of this world than he claims to be. Second,

Tajomaru describes the lady as a Bodhisattva, one who has achieved

enlightenment but who postpones nirvana to help enlighten others.

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The spirituality implied is thoroughly weak, for the woman's heavenly beauty

only inspires the brutal act of rape. Further, if the lady is lying during the course

of her confession, the fact that she seeks refuge in the Shimizu Temple is also

ironic.

There is a disparity between the ideal and the actual role of women in

Akutagawa's vision. There is a certain ambiguity surrounding the woman. On the

one hand, she is as lovely as a Bodhisattva, but there is also the suggestion that

she is a sword-wielding manipulator. What is clear, however, is that the brutal

violation of the woman is at the center of this dark tale. The woman in

Akutagawa's story is vulnerable, pushed violently into the depths of the darkness.

Kurosawa's film seems to capture some of this; in particular, one scene depicts the

woman on the ground with her cursing husband towering over her on one side and

Tajomaru on the other, his legs bestraddled. The camera view is through the legs

of Tajomaru, making the woman's denigration painfully apparent.

Akutagawa has inverted the medieval themes and motifs in his story “In A

Grove”. The courtly love motif of kaimami or view through a fence seems to be

alluded to when a providential puff of wind allows Tajomaru to catch a glimpse of

the lady's face. Rather than initiating a highly stylized courtly love story,

however, the view is the catalyst for rape. Further, the Buddhist theme of

reincarnation that prompts a rash of love suicides in both literature and life during

the Edo period is inverted by Akutagawa as well. As the woman tells it, she is

willing to commit murder-suicide, not so that she will be reborn in another life

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with her husband, but so that she can turn her back on shame and self-loathing;

thus, it is an end rather than a beginning.

The story is filled with half-truths and evasions designed to enhance each

speaker's reputation. And finally, the tale ends in silence, a deep silence like that

of the dead in their graves. Thus, language disappears altogether. Akutagawa’s

tale unravels the fabric of society and the traditions of honor on which it is based.

With amazing economy, Akutagawa brilliantly sets the symbolic stage

with the very first sentence of “Rashomon”, “It was a chilly evening. A servant of

a samurai stood under the Rashomon, waiting for a break in the rain. No one else

was under the wide gate.” (34)

In the story “Rashomon”, a recently dismissed servant waiting under the

Rashomon gate on a rainy day finds a woman picking out the hair of a corpse. She

explains that, before dying of the plague, the person had once sold dried snake

flesh to the men at the guard barracks, claiming it was dried fish. The old woman

explains to the servant that both she and the corpse had done what was necessary

to survive. Hearing her tale, the servant robs her and runs away. The rain at the

end of the day is an indication of the bleak scene, and the setting itself is also

suggestive of the story’s harsh world.

“Rashomon” is a short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke based on tales

from the Konjaku Monogatarishu. The story was first published in 1915

in Teikoku Bungaku. Despite its name, it provided no direct plot material for

the Akira Kurosawa movie Rashomon, which was based on Akutagawa's 1921

short story, “In a Grove” and certain elements from the story “Rashomon”.

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As has been said, the servant was waiting for the break in the rain.

But he had not particular idea of what to do after the rain stopped.

Ordinarily, of course, he would have returned to his master’s

house, but he had been discharged just before. The prosperity of

the city of Kyoto had been rapidly declining, and he had been

dismissed by his master, whom he had served many years, because

of the effect of this decline. Thus, confined by the rain, he was at a

loss to know where to go. And the weather had not a little to do

with his depressed mood. (36-37)

The story recounts an encounter between a servant and an old woman in

the dilapidated Rashomon Gate, where unclaimed corpses were sometimes

dumped. The man, recently fired, is contemplating whether to starve to death or to

become a thief so he can survive. When he goes upstairs in the building to find a

place to sleep, he encounters an old woman, who is cutting the hair off of the dead

bodies on the second floor. Disgusted, he decides then that he would rather take

the path of righteousness even if it means starvation. He is furious with the

woman, but she explains that she steals hair to make wigs so she can survive.

The next moment his hand dropped and he stared. He caught sight

of a ghoulish form bent over a corpse. It seemed to be an old

woman, gaunt, gray-haired, and nunnish in appearance. With a

pine torch in her right hand, she was peeping into the face of a

corpse which had long black hair.

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Seized with horror than curiosity, he even forgot to breathe for a

time. He felt the hair of his head and body stand on end. As he

watched, terrified, she wedged the torch between two floors boards

and, laying hands on the head of the corpse, began to pull out the

long hairs one by one, as a monkey kills the lice of her young. The

hair came out smoothly with the movement of her hands.

As the hair came out, fear faded from him heart, and his hatred

towards the old woman mounted. It grew beyond hatred, becoming

a consuming antipathy against all evil. At this instant if anyone had

brought up the question of whether he would starve to death or

become a thief – the question of which had occurred to him a little

while ago – he would not have hesitated to choose death. His

hatred towards evil flared up like the piece of pine wood which the

old woman had stuck in the floor.

He did not know why she pulled out the hair of the dead.

Accordingly, he did not know whether her case was to be put down

as good or bad. (39-40)

In addition, she tells him that the woman whose body she is currently

robbing cheated people during her lifetime, by selling dried snake meat and

claiming it was fish. The old woman says that this was not wrong because it

allowed the woman to survive, and in turn entitles her to steal from the dead

person, because if she does not, she too will starve.

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I pull the hair… I pull out the hair… to make a wig.

Indeed, making wigs out of the hair of the dead may seem a great

evil to you, but these that are here deserve no better. This woman,

whose beautiful black hair I was pulling, used to sell cut and dried

snake flesh at the guard barracks, saying that it was dried fish. If

she hadn’t died of the plague, she’d be selling it now. The guards

liked to buy from her, and used to say her fish was tasty. What she

did couldn’t be wrong because if she hadn’t, she would have

starved to death. There was no other choice. If she knew I had to

do this in order to live, she probably wouldn’t care. (42)

The man responds saying that, "Then, you won't mind if I strip you of

your clothes. If I don't, I too will starve." He brutally disrobes the old woman,

takes her kimono and disappears into the night.

Then it’s right if I rob you, I’d starve if I didn’t.

He tore her clothes from her body and kicked her roughly down on

the corpses as she struggled and tried to clutch his leg. Five steps,

and he was at the top of the stairs. The yellow clothes he had

wrested off were under his arm, and in a twinkling he had rushed

down the steep stairs into the abyss of night. The thunder of his

descending steps pounded in the hollow tower, and then it was

quiet.

Shortly after that the hag raised up her body from the corpses.

Grumbling and groaning, she crawled to the top stair by the still

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flickering torchlight, and through the gray hair which hung over

her face, she peered down to the last stair in the torch light.

Beyond this was only darkness…. Unknowing and unknowing.

(43-44)

Akutagawa has tried to question the values of the society in the story

“Rashomon”. He dramatizes the complexities of human psychology and analyze

with a Zen taste for paradox, precariously balancing the illusion and reality.

Akutagawa’s has a unique, original story telling method and most of his

themes are interesting. His short stories reveal unity, density, and brevity. The

stories of Akutagawa, like other Japanese short stories have a specific kind of

beauty hidden within them, which are currently less unknown compared to the

Western Literature.

The remarkable 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa, Rashomon, combines

elements from two of Akutagawa’s stories, “In A Grove” and “Rashomon”,

fusing the two stories which originally were not connected to each other.

Kurosawa’s film focuses on Akutagawa’s “In A Grove”, dramatizing the

conflicting narratives of the husband, the wife and the robber. However, as a

frame to the main narrative, he includes a priest, a woodcutter and a commoner

talking together under the Rashomon gate on a rainy day. The woodcutter, who

discovered the body of the husband, introduces the stories of the robber, the wife

and the husband. Kurosawa adds a new element to the story at the end of the film,

when the woodcutter agrees to adopt an abandoned baby. The film Rashomon is

acclaimed for its achievement in both literary and film-making world. Rashomon

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won the first prize at the 1951 Venice Film Festival, then the best known of the

European film prizes.

Takashi Kojima, the translator of Akutagawa’s Rashomon, informs:

The Rashomon was the largest gate in Kyoto, the ancient capital of

Japan. It was 106 feet wide and 26 feet deep, and was topped with

a ridgepole; its stone wall rose 75 feet high. This gate was

constructed in 789 and in 794 the capital of Japan was transferred

to Kyoto. With the decline of Kyoto in the twelfth century, the

gate fell into disrepair, cracking and crumbling in many places.

An excerpt by Richie Donald from Kurosawa’s autobiography says:

This background information might help students visualize the

setting of the stories. The original gate has been destroyed, so

Kurosawa had constructed a model of it, based on his observations

of extant gates, for the set of his movie. ( 114).

The story of the film in brief is on an isolated bush trail in 12th Century

Japan, a woman is brutally raped and her husband is found murdered nearby.

Rashomon conveys the story of their final hours together from the points of view

of four witnesses. First, a woodsman Takashi Shimura, who claims to have

discovered the body, followed by a captured bandit Toshiro Mifune who seems

happy to confess all. The surviving wife share her harrowing tale, an account that

is only bettered by a shocking revelation from the dead man himself,

communicating via a typically eccentric medium.

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In a film that leaves the viewer wondering who to believe, it is not all that

surprising to find that we are also faced with a very negative view of mankind.

Lies, treachery and callousness are found to be plentiful. The discovery of a dead

samurai in Japan in the 12th Century was nothing special considering the country

had been enduring years of war, famine and plague. It is the method of the man's

betrayal that makes the situation so shocking. He may have been simply murdered

at the whim of a passing bandit, or it could have been a cold betrayal on the part

of his dissatisfied, yet highly decorated wife. The viewer is given the facts at

hand, and is left to draw their own conclusions.

In its time, Rashomon was considered by many as an experimental or art

house piece of work, even though it went on to gather awards at festivals around

the globe. Kurosawa applied many unique camera angles and utilized long shots

with the camera mounted on a complicated trolley system; all stylistic devices that

had not been used on screen before to that scale. In fact, Kurosawa is recorded as

saying proudly that the camera had a starring role in the film Rashomon. The

film's use of light and shadow is similarly striking, and the effects seem subtle.

Applying them to specific scenes was quite an involving process for Kurosawa.

Production of the film was threatened twice by fires at the Daiei studio, the

second occurring only four days before the film was due to premiere. Despite

many members of the crew being overcome by toxic fumes coming from the

burning celluloid, only one reel of negative was lost in the fire and the film

debuted to schedule.

The film includes famous dialogues like:

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Commoner: But is there anyone who's really good? Maybe

goodness is just make-believe.

Priest: What a frightening...

Commoner: Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in

the made-up good stuff. It's easier that way.

Another one on the same lines:

Priest: If men don't trust each other, this earth might as well be

hell.

Commoner: Right. The world's a kind of hell.

Priest: No! I don't want to believe that!

Commoner: No one will hear you, no matter how loud you shout.

Just think. Which one of these stories do you

believe?

Woodcutter: None makes any sense.

Commoner: Don't worry about it. It isn't as if men were reasonable.

The film Rashomon provokes reflection upon philosophical themes such

as perspectivism, ambiguity, and moral responsibility. It stands to this day as a

fascinating, thought-provoking, and visually arresting film, one of the many

jewels in Kurosawa's magnificent directorial crown.

The third-person narrator of both fiction and film has largely come under

attack by postmodern artists. By showing us its various interpretations, Kurosawa

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has shown first that human beings are incapable of judging reality, much less

truth, and, second, that they must continually deceive themselves if they are to

remain true to themselves. The film initially adopts Akutagawa's challenge to

objective narration only to reveal an overall structural force bringing meaning to

the film as a whole.

While there is no obvious connection between the plots or the characters

of the two stories, Kurosawa clearly saw some similarities or links in the two

stories. Though we may not know all the similarities, one important similarity is

that the dark view of human nature is implied by each story.

Kurosawa in his film Rashomon discards the central plot, the story of the

old woman pulling hair from the corpse and the man who robs her from

Akutagawa’s story Rashomon. While Kurosawa uses the setting, the decaying

gate and the rainy day. He has his characters refer to the natural disasters that

have plagued the city and to discarded corpses lying on the top of the gate.

Just as Akutagawa adds the description of the setting to suggest that the

actions of his characters are not isolated events but are integral parts of a world

where everything is disintegrating and falling apart, the opening of Kurosawa’s

film prepares the viewer to hear a tale of terrible events and to see those events as

part of a fragmented, decaying world. This is how Kurosawa shapes the viewer’s

perception of the heart of the film.

Akutagawa closes both his stories at a very bleak moment in the lives of

the characters, without offering the reader any possibility of renewal or salvation.

Whereas Kurosawa in the movie offers the possibility that, as the

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commoner declares: the world we live in is a hell, it also offers the possibility that

individuals within this hell may act with compassion and decency. This closing of

the movie counters the darkness of Akutagawa’s stories. An important dialogue

from the film quotes :

Commoner: Well, men are only men. That's why they lie. They can't tell

the truth, even to themselves.

Priest: That may be true. Because men are weak, they lie to deceive

themselves.

Commoner: Not another sermon! I don't mind a lie if it's

interesting.

“Yam Gruel” features a bumbling protagonist Goi whose greatest

ambition was to eat his fill of this aristocratic delicacy. When he is presented with

an opportunity to fulfill his ambition, however, things do not go the way he

imagined.

One day on his way from Sanjomon to Shinsen-en, he saw several

children gathered at the roadside. Thinking they might be spinning

tops, he watched them, from behind, and found them thrashing a

stray, shaggy dog, held by a rope fastened round his neck. The shy

Goi had almost always been too timid to translate into action

whatever he might have really felt. But on this occasion, since they

were children, he could muster up some courage.

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“Please spare him,” he said, smiling as broadly as possible and

patting the shoulder of the boy who seemed the oldest of the group.

“If you hit the dog, you’ll hurt him.”

The boy looked back, and turning up his eyes, stared at him

contemptuously. “Mind your own business,” he retorted. And,

taking a step backward, he pouted his proud lips and shouted,

“What? You, red-nosed wretch!”

Goi felt as if these words had struck his face. It was not that he had

taken the least offence at the boy’s abusive language, but that he

felt miserable for having disgraced himself by an unnecessary

remark. Concealing his shame with a bitter smile, he silently went

on towards Shinsen-en. The children behind made faces and thrust

out their tongues at him. Of course he did not see them. Even if he

had, it would have made no difference to the spiritless Goi. (50-51)

Goi is frail and old, unwanted and mistreated by everyone including his

master. His subordinates ignore his words and carry on with whatever they were

doing. Goi is even bullied by disobedient children in the street, when he attempts

to interfere in stopping a stray being beaten. Goi is not confrontational, nor is he

argumentative. He is timid in his approach to life, asking for nothing, and only

carrying out what is asked for him day in and day out.

In fact, at the place where he works, people are least interested is talking

to Goi that hand signals are considered sufficient and worthy enough to talk with

him. If he fails to understand he is punished or simply ignored. Goi is never

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annoyed with this, although he does not love his job, he is grateful for having it,

and therefore never complains.

Every year a ceremony is held by the master of the house. As tradition

permits, the subordinates are allowed to join the master for a meal and drinks. It is

perhaps the only time that Goi looks forward to. It is the only time he gets the

chance to eat yam gruel. The smell, the taste, and the entire experience enthralls

him. With not much to look forward to, this is the most he can hope for. This year

however, there are more workers, and thus the portion of yam gruel received is

less than last year.

And, thought it may have been only his fancy, it seemed that the

yam gruel tasted more delicious than usual. After he had finished

it, his eyes were still riveted on the empty bowl. Wiping the drops

off his thin mustache, he remarked to someone nearby, “I wonder

if I shall ever eat my fill of yam gruel.”

“He says he hasn’t had enough yam gruel,” someone laughed. It

was a sonorous and dignified warrior-like voice. Goi, raising his

head, looked timidly toward the speaker. The voice came from

Fujiwara Toshihito, the son of Tokinaga, who was Finance

Minister under the regency of Mototsune. (52-53)

Goi is troubled, and mutters that he has not had his fill of yam gruel. Over

hearing this is the son of the master of the house. Everyone else also over hears

and mock Goi’s comment. The master’s son asks Goi if he would like some more

yam gruel, and Goi is aware that he would be the butt of jokes regardless of his

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answer. He kindly accepts the son’s offer, but the son just laughs and the night

continues.

Goi, unfortunately, cannot remove the thought of yam gruel from his

mind. Nor can he forget the son’s offer of more yam gruel. Goi goes to sleep,

thinking of yam gruel and wakes up wanting the same. He has been tempted and

teased and he wishes for more.

“Lord bless me!” Goi blubbered out. “First I thought our

destination was Higashiyama, but it turned out to be the Mie

Temple. Finally you tell me you’re going to take me to Tsuruga

in Echizen. Whatever do you mean? If you’d told me so at first, I’d

have brought my servant with me at least…. Tsuruga, Lord bless

me!”

If his cravings for yam gruel had not encouraged him, he would

probably have left Toshihito and returned to Kyoto alone.

“Consider one Toshihito a thousand men strong. You needn’t

worry about our trip.” Toshihito scoffed, frowning slightly as he

saw Goi’s consternation. (59)

Much to Goi’s surprise, the son keeps his promise, and offers Goi a horse

to take a journey, at the end of which he would receive his yam gruel. It is several

days of travel, when the son finally reveals where they are headed for a long

journey, and Goi suddenly loses the interest in traveling. Still, appreciative and

idolizing, Goi accepts the situation as it is and continues to travel with the son.

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Upon reaching their destination, the home of the son’s family, including

his father-in-law and wife, the son looks after Goi as he would any guest,

providing clothing, water and so on. Goi is still appreciative, but upon riding to

the destination, the son had a malicious grin about him.

So after all he was to have yam gruel. When he thought of this, the

old uneasiness which had left him because of the distraction of

what was happening outside, came back again. His perverse

reluctance of being treated to yam gruel too soon grew stronger

than ever, and it continued to dominate his thoughts. Such an early

realization of his heart’s desire seemed to turn years of patient

waiting into a vain endeavor. If possible, he wished that something

unexpected would happen to keep him from eating yam gruel for a

while. (67)

Goi’s appetite for yam has departed, as it has been on his mind since the

night of the ceremony. He has watched the yams collate and the cauldrons set. As

the yam gruel is made, the scent is enough for Goi, and he no longer wishes to eat.

Goi’s sickness of yam is cured, and the thought of eating yam would be too much.

However, obligated by his journey for yams, he amuses the son and his father-in-

law by forcing himself to eat the gruel.

Naturally enough, when Goi, who had watched these things, was

served yam gruel in a huge pitcher, he wiped his perspiring brow

in embarrassment.

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“I hear you haven’t had your fill of yam gruel,” said Arihito’s

father-in-law, “please help yourself without reserve.” And he

ordered the servant boys to bring several more large pitchers of

yam gruel. Goi put about half of the yam gruel from the pitcher

into a big earthen vessel, and closing his eyes, he reluctantly drank

it off, his red nose becoming all the redder.

“As my father said, you needn’t be hesitant.” Grinning

maliciously, Toshihito also pressed Goi to have another pitcherful

of yam gruel. Goi was in a terrible plight. Frankly, he had not

wanted to eat even one bowlful of yam gruel even at the beginning.

With great endurance he managed to do justice to half a pitcherful

of it. If he took any more, he thought he would throw it up before

swallowing it. But to refuse to eat any more would be to spurn the

kindness of Toshihito and Arihito. So closing his eyes again, he

drained off a third of the remaining half. He could not take another

mouthful. (69-70)

“Yam Gruel” provides a rather obvious moral tale, looking at greed as

well as the influence on subordinates by their masters, ensuring obedience and

reminding them of their place. Goi’s desire to have yam gruel turns from luxury

to burden, to repulsion, perhaps indicative of the methods used to apply control.

This story may seem a bit silly but it’s deeper than it seems. All his life

Goi wanted to satisfy his craving of yam gruel which was the only objective he

seemed to have in his simple, common life. He thought that by satisfying his deep

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desire for this delicacy he would become happy, but in reality this craving of his

was like a longing to fill that emptiness he had within him. This made him

miserable and tormented throughout his life.

Watching the fox eat its meal, Goi looked back with fond longing

on his past life before the time he had come to Tsuruga. What he

remembered was that he had been made a fool of by many

warriors, and reviled even by Kyoto boys with “What? You Red

Nose!” and that he was a pitiful, lonely being, with faded silk robe

and nondescript sword, who wandered about Sujaku Avenue like a

homeless mongrel. But at the same time he had been happy,

treasuring up his desire to gorge himself on yam gruel. (71)

Depressed people often crave for food, and have a tendency to have an

aspiration to eat a lot of sweets, believing that this would make them happy. They

go through extreme measures to obtain their desires but in the end they realize

that these are only a temporary relief to what is really troubling them. Goi seems

to be lying to himself thinking that he would end up a happy man when his

cravings of yam gruel would be satisfied.

On the other hand the simpler message is that of having too much of a

good thing. Goi once had something to look forward to, but after the experience

would be lacking that one thing. The development of Goi is cautious and careful,

ensuring a gradual rather than rapid change. We see his confidence grow over the

days, with the respect and courtesy offered by the master’s son, and then suddenly

it all comes tumbling down.

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On one level Goi’s hunger and his ultimate inability to fulfill it might be

interpreted as a spiritual thirst, which he is unable to quench. Sometimes, a high

degree of spiritual quotient is required for this search. Goi becomes a symbol of

the lower masses of humanity who live on a physical plane and cannot understand

and do not know how to find the ultimate peace. Akutagawa reflects on this lot of

mankind suffering and struggling through the character of Goi.

The story “The Martyr” starts with two wise quotes and goes further like

this :

Even if one liveth to be three hundred years of age in excess of

pleasure, it is but as a dream compared with everlasting pleasure

- Guide do Pecador.

He who walketh the path of goodness shall enjoy the mysterious

sweetness which prevadeth the doctrine.

– Imitatione Christi.

One Christmas night some years ago a young Japanese boy was

found exhausted and starving at the entrance to the Church of

Santa Lucia in Nagasaki. He was taken in and cared for by the

Jesuit brothers who were coming into the church. He was given the

name Lorenzo, and was thereafter brought up in the church under

the wing of the Jesuit missionaries.

When the brothers asked him about his birth and parents, he never

revealed his history, but gave such evasive answers as, “My home

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is paradise,” and “My father is the Father of all.” His disarming

smile dispelled further questioning as to his past.

It was, however, evident from the blue rosary on his wrist that his

family had not been heathens. Perhaps that was the reason why the

kindly fathers and brothers took Lorenzo to their heart. (72-73)

“The Martyr” is a Christian tale of misunderstanding, deceit, betrayal,

lies and death which inevitably leads to the reaffirming of faith amongst those

that have sinned. “The Martyr” was taken from Volume II of The Legenda

Aurea. This story is presumably a truthful record of a happening which took

place in a Christian church at Nagasaki in those days.

“The Martyr” is set in the 6th Century and involves an orphan raised by

Jesuits and there is a classic twist in this tale when questions pertaining to child

paternity arise. The primary theme in “The Martyr’ is the nature of pure religious

faith and the psychology of the martyr, based on a legend dealing with the early

Japanese Christians living in the area of Nagasaki.

The story in both the print and animated forms appears, at first, to be a

simple and moving children's story working from Christian themes and biblical

allusions. On Christmas night, a young homeless orphan stumbles into small,

rural Christian church during the Christmas service. Lorenzo is accepted by the

congregation because of a Christian rosary on his wrist. But where he came

from or who his parents were remain mysteries. He only says that his home is

paradise, and his father is the Father of all. The boy's apparent purity and piety

make the people see him as an Angel sent by God.

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However, once he happened to pick up in the back garden of

Santa Lucia a love letter from the girl addressed to Lorenzo.

Thrusting it into Lorenzo’s face, and threatening and coaxing,

Simeon questioned him in many ways. But Lorenzo, his

handsome face blushing, merely said, “I hear the girl has given

her heart to me, but I only received letters from her, and I have

never even talked with her.” Simeon, who felt the weight of the

town’s opinion, pressed further questions on his brother.

Lorenzo, gazing at the other with his sad, reproachful look,

said, “Do I look like a liar even to you?” and left the room like

a swallow leaving his nest. (75)

For three years Simeon, a former samurai and now a brother in the

church, takes care of the boy like a younger brother, directing his saintliness

toward some religious role and destiny. But when Ine, the umbrella maker's

daughter, accuses Lorenzo of being the father of her unborn child, the village

people and Simeon turn on the boy refusing to believe his innocence and

banishing him.

The most pitiable of all was Simeon, who had been Lorenzo’s

dearest friend. More vexed by being deceived than grieved at his

being driven away, Simeon struck Lorenzo full in his handsome

face as he went sadly out of the doorway into the cold winter

blast. Knocked off balance by the blow, Lorenzo fell down. But

he got up slowly, and looking up to the sky with tearful eyes, he

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prayed in a quivering voice; “Lord, forgive Simeon, for he

knows not what he does.” Disheartened by these words, Simeon

only went on slashing and flailing his arms for a time at the

doorway.

Finally restrained by the other brothers, he folded his arms, and

with his face as fierce as the threatening sky, he glared

resentfully at the back of Lorenzo who was sorrowfully leaving

the gate of Santa Lucia. (76)

After a year of wandering in exile, Lorenzo returns just as a raging fire

sweeps through the village. Plunging into the inferno, he saves the child he has

supposedly fathered, at the cost of his own life. As a tearful Ine confesses over

the body that Lorenzo was not the father, the people discover the truth:

Lorenzo was a young woman.

The infant, whom Lorenzo had thrown with his last desperate

strength as he was struck by the fall of the burning beam,

fortunately dropped unhurt at the feet of the mother. (82)

The umbrella- maker’s daughter, choked with tears, had been

pressing her baby to her breast, now threw herself on her knees at

the feet of the Father Superior and made an unexpected confession

of her love affair: “This baby girl is not a child by Lorenzo. To tell

you the truth, this is a child I had by becoming intimate with the

son of the heathen family next door.” The trembling of the

distracted girl’s voice and the glistening of her eyes bathed in tears

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proved beyond all doubt that there was not a shadow of falsehood

in her confession. (83)

At that time the outcries, “Martyr,” “Martyr!” surged up from

among the Christians who crowded around two and three deep.

“Out of his love for the sinner,” the voices cried, “he degraded

himself to beggary, following in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus

Christ. But no man, not even the Father Superior whom he looked

up to as his father, and Simeon whom he relied on as his brother,

knew his heart. What is this but a martyr?” (84)

This simple story and the surprise revelation of Lorenzo's identity tend

to reveal the nature of pure religious faith and martyrdom. The story could

provide a springboard to the study of the religions of Japan and how Japanese

although two thirds of the population claim not to be actively religious, draw

on aspects of Shintoism, Buddhism and Christianity in their lives.

The tears could not stop flowing from the Father’s shriveled

cheeks. Suddenly the umbrella-maker and Simeon stared. The

eyes of all followed their to two soft, pure breasts, which stood

out among the rags on the chest of the angel, now lying silently

at the gate of Santa Lucia, bathed in the light of the fire red as

the blood of Jesus Christ at his crucifixion. Now on Lorenzo’s

sorely burned face, its natural gentleness and beauty could no

longer be concealed. It may have been only a moment – it

seemed like an eternity – before the entire assembly realized

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that Lorenzo was not a boy but a girl. Yes, Lorenzo was a girl!

Lorenzo was a girl! Behold! With the flames raging at their

back, the brethren circled around Lorenzo, stood in awe and

wonder with their eyes fastened on the martyr. Lorenzo, driven

out of Santa Lucia on the false charge of adultery, was fair girl

of this country like the umbrella- maker’s daughter herself.

Soon the silence was broken by the sad, solemn chanting of the

scriptures by the reverend Father, his had raised aloft. When his

chanting ceased, “Lorenzo,” he called, and the fair-eyed girl

quietly breathed her last, with a faint, peaceful smile on her lips,

looking up into the glory of Heaven for beyond the dark night.

Nothing else is known of the life of this girl. Yet what does it

matter? For the sublimity of life culminates in the most precious

moment of inspiration. (85-86)

In his last years before his suicide at age 35, Akutagawa was

increasingly interested in Christianity and the theme and psychology of self-

sacrifice. “The Martyr” written in 1918, nine years before his death, was one

of around fifteen stories dealing with early Japanese Christians and their

struggles to hold on to their religious faith.

The story “Kesa and Morito” is told via two different monologues. Kesa

and Morito are illicit lovers, and Morito is driven to kill Kesa’s husband. Here’s

the dilemma — Morito doesn’t hate the man and he doesn’t love Kesa but he feels

Kesa is compelling him to do it. Kesa doesn’t love Morito either, but is fascinated

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because Morito mirrors the ugliness she sees in herself. Out of guilt, Kesa

switches with her husband on the night Morito comes to kill him. It’s also

fascinating how the story tests the very thin line between love and hate.

Looking at the moon in a pensive mood, Morito walks on the

fallen leaves outside the fence of his house.

Morito’s Monologue: The moon is rising now. I usually wait for

moonrise impatiently. But tonight the bright moonrise shocks me

with horror. I shudder to think that tonight will destroy my present

self and turn me into a wretched murderer. Imagine when these

hands will have turned crimson with blood! What a cursed being I

shall seem to myself then! My heart would not be so wrung with

pain if I were to kill an enemy I hate, but tonight I have to kill a

man whom I do not hate.

But do I really love Kesa? Our love affair may be separated into

two stages, the past and the present. I loved her before she married

Wataru, or I thought I did. But now that I look into my heart, I find

there were many motives. What did I want from her? (90-91)

A man who feels neither love nor hate must kill someone he does not hate

at the request of a lover he does not love. This is one of the most soap-operatic

kinds of tales with just the right amount of freshness. The story is based on the

plot of self-sacrifice as a traditional Japanese cultural ideal and as an act growing

out of the complex emotional states of love, guilt, anger and vengeance.

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Laugh, if you wish, at my cowardice. This is the action of one who

did not know how base his paramour could be. “If I don’t kill her

husband, she will kill me one way or another. I must kill him else

she will kill me,” I thought desperately, looking into her tearless

but crying eyes.

What is that great power which impels me, this coward ‘me’, to

murder an innocent man? I cannot tell. I cannot tell. But

possibly…. No, it cannot be. I despise her. I fear her. I hate her.

And yet, and yet, it may be because I love her.

Morito, continuing to pace, says no more. The singing of a ballad

comes out of the night. The human mind is in the dark. With not a

light to shine upon. It burns a fire of worldly cares. To go and fade

in but a span. (94-95)

It is the story of a samurai's obsessive love for a beautiful noblewoman

who is already married. Akutagawa's study demythologizes the historical and

traditional ideal in the story. His Kesa and her obsessed lover Morito are revealed

through interior confessional monologues which uncover the layers of conflicting

emotions and motives.

At night under a lamp, Kesa, lost in thought, biting her sleeves,

stands with her back toward the light.

Kesa’s Monologue: Is he coming or isn’t he, I wonder. It’s highly

unlikely that he isn’t. The moon is already sinking, but not a

footstep can be heard, so he may have changed his mind. If he

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should not come, I shall have to live in shame day after day, like a

prostitute. How can I be so lost to shame and evil? For I shall be no

better than a dead body tossed by the roadside. I shall be

dishonoured and trampled on, with my shame brought to light. And

yet I shall have to be silent as if dumb. In that case I shall carry my

regret beyond the grave. I’m sure he’ll come. (97)

The two sides which are presented in the story are, firstly Morito

struggles with his conscience on why he made such a rash decision to say he

would kill Kesa’s husband. Morito also feels hatred towards Kesa, having

dishonoured her, for not being as beautiful as he had assumed, for being uglier

in the light than he had expected. This tells about a case of his high

expectations met with the disappointment of Kesa, resulting in shame and

disgust being directed at her than himself. Morito comes across as a pathetic

man, but at the same time emphatically weak as he fears Kesa.

But how can a woman’s heart ever be comforted once it has known

the ugliness of her own person? I was mortified, horrified, grieved.

How much better was the lurid uneasiness of the eclipse of the

moon which I saw as a child in my nurse’s arm, compared to the

ghostly despair that darkened my mind at that moment! All the

visions and dreams I had in my heart vanished. The loneliness of a

rainy dawn enshrouded me quietly. Shuddering with loneliness, I

finally gave up my body, which was as good as dead, into the arms

of a man I did not live – into the arms of a lascivious man who

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hates and despises me. Could I not endure my loneliness since my

ugliness was vividly shown to me? (98)

Secondly the tale deals with Kesa’s awareness of his disgust, even

though he’s not aware that she knows it already. The options that are left for

Kesa if Morito does not carry out his promise according to their plan, is rather

challenging. Kesa comes to term with the shame and disgust she feels in

herself for shaming her husband and for dishonouring herself in a moment of

lust for a man, a would be killer, that she does not even love. The torment that

both Kesa and Morito feel, in their act of stupidity is brilliantly portrayed with

imagination and emotion.

“Let’s kill Wataru,” and his mustache touched my ears as I was

sobbing. The instant I heard these words, I felt strangely enlivened.

Yes, I felt lively and bright as pale moonlight, if moonlight can be

said to be bright. After all, was I not comforted by these words?

Oh, am I not – is not a woman a being that feels joy in being loved

by a man even if she has to kill her own husband?

I continued to weep for some time with a lonely and lively feeling

like moonlight. When did I ever promise to give a helping hand in

this murder of my husband?

Not until then had my husband entered my mind. I honestly say

“not until then.” Until that time my mind was wholly occupied

with myself and my dishonor. Then I saw the image of my

husband’s smiling face. Probably the moment I remembered his

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face, the plan flashed across my mind. At that time I was already

determined to die, and I was glad of my decision.

Is it really because of my love for my husband that I am going to

die for him? No, it is merely that under such reasonable pretext, I

want to atone for my sin of having slept with another. (99-100)

The dilemmatic situation where Morito has to choose between breaking

his promise and committing murder is wonderfully portrayed in the story. The

main motives in “Kesa and Morito” are pride, cowardice, and hatred, while

Morito’s display of love is fake. His choice results in Kesa’s death and him being

a murderer.

I am going to die not for my husband but for myself. I am going to

die to punish my lover’s having hurt my heart and for my grudge at

his having sullied my body. Oh, not only am I unworthy of living

but unworthy of dying.

But now, how much better it is to die even an ignominious death,

than to live. Smiling a forced smile, I repeatedly promised to kill

my husband with him. Since he is quick-witted, he must have

sensed from my words what the consequences would be if he

broke his promise. So it seems impossible that after making such a

promise he should fall back on it. Is that the sound of the wind?

When I think that my afflictions from that day are at last coming to

an end tonight, I feel at ease. Tomorrow will not fail to shed its

cold light on my headless body. If my husband sees it, he will…

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no, I won’t think of him. My husband loves me. But I have no

strength to return his love. I can love only one man. And that very

man is coming to kill me tonight. Even this rushlight is too bright

for me, tortured by my lover as I am.

Kesa blows out the light. Soon the faint sound of the opening of a

shutter is heard, and pale moonlight floods in. (100-101)

Akutagawa's story “Kesa and Morito” is a dark, personal, disillusioned

view of traditional ideals in 1918 Japan. It’s a brilliant story about making rash

promises, about honour, and all is not as it seems. Without the consideration of

motives and consequences, all the actions will be judged as morally wrong. It is

obviously necessary to consider the factors of motives and consequences in

making moral judgment toward other people’s actions.

Akutagawa’s stories are made up of illusions and confusions; they give a

psychological insight into the hollowness of relationships. No relationship is

satisfying in this story of “Keas and Morito”. One realizes that in a licentious

relationship nobody is happy or at peace.

“The Dragon” is a short story first published in a collection of Akutagawa

short stories, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshu. The story is based on a thirteenth-

century Japanese tale, with Akutagawa’s Taisho literary interpretations of modern

psychology and the nature of religion.

The short story was written at the outset of the Taisho Period, a period

from about 1912 to 1926 and showcases much of the influence the period had on

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modern Taisho writers. Like much of Akutagawa's works, it contains a fusion of

ancient settings and modern thought enlightening the mindset of the individual.

On a certain night, Hanazo, that is, Ohana-no-Kurodo Tokugyo,

the priest, came alone to the pond of Sarusawa, without the

company of his disciples, and set up, on the bank in front of the

weeping willow, a notice-board which said in bold characters, “On

March third a dragon shall ascend from this pond.” But as a matter

of fact, he didn’t know whether or not a dragon really lived in the

pond of Sarusawa, and needless to say, the dragon’s ascension to

heaven on March third was a black lie. The reason why he made

such needless mischief is that he was displeased with the priests of

Nara, who were habitually making fun of his nose, and he planned

to play a trick on them this time and laugh at them to his heart’s

content. Your Lordship must think it quite ridiculous. But this is

an old story, and in those days people who played such tricks were

by no means uncommon. (105-106)

The story revolves around a practical joke played by the Buddhist monk

called Kurodo Tokugyo with the official title "Former Keeper of His Majesty’s

Storehouse and Master of the Profound Dialogue". He had an extraordinary large

nose. The tip of his nose shone frightfully crimson all the year round, as if it had

been stung by a wasp. So the people of Nara nicknamed him Hanazo. People

joked about his long protruding nose, leading him to focus more on practical

joking than on his religion.

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Hanazo erects a sign next to the Sarusawa Pond reading: “On the third day

of the third month, the dragon of this pond will ascend to heaven.” However,

though Hanazo intended the joke to affect only those in his immediate area, his

sign ends up attracting many from miles around, including many influential lords

and his superstitious aunt. A numberless crowd watches the lake faithfully as

Hanazo both scoffs their ignorance and marvels at the turnout. Eventually, the sky

darkens and everyone gathered, including Hanazo, believe they see a dark

powerful dragon ascending towards the sky. Afterwards, no one will believe

Hanazo’s claim that the sign was a practical joke; even Hanazo, the instigator,

believes a dragon from the pond actually flew towards his home.

Then, in front of the big southern gate of the temple, by chance he

met the priest called Emon, who lived in the same cell as he

himself.

“You are up unusually early today,” Emon said, furrowing his

dark, thick, stubborn brow. “The weather may change.”

“The weather may really change,” Hanazo readily replied with a

knowing look, dilating his nose. “I’m told that a dragon will

ascend to heaven from the Sarusawa Pond on March third.”

Hearing this, Emon glared dubiously at Hanazo. But soon purring

in his throat, he said with a sardonic smile, “You had a good

dream, I suppose. I was once told that to dream of a dragon

ascending to heaven is an auspicious omen.” So saying he tried to

go past Hanazo, tossing his mortar-shaped head. But he must have

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heard Hanazo muttering to himself, “A lost soul is beyond

redemption.” Turning back with such hateful force that the

supports of his hemp-thronged clogs bent for the moment, he

demanded of Hanazo, in a tone as vehement as if he would

challenge him to a Buddhist controversy, “Is there any positive

proof that a dragon will ascend to heaven?” Hanazo replied,

looking down at him, “If you doubt my remark, you ought to see

the notice-board in front of the weeping willow.” (108-109)

The major theme of “The Dragon” is the nature of religion. Akutagawa

convinces everyone, even the man who absolutely knows the information must be

false, that a vague shadowy image was the figure of a dragon ascending to

heaven.

As Rubin Jay puts it: The Dragon toys with the likelihood that religion is

nothing more than mass hysteria, a force so powerful that even the fabricator of

an object of veneration can be taken in by it.

In the meantime, the notice-board message “On March third a

dragon shall ascend from this pond,” came to be more and more

talked about, and Hanazo, elated by this success, chuckled to

himself, and dilated his nose.

The mischief he had done with the intention of playing a trick upon

the people of Nara had brought about the unexpected result of

deceiving tens of thousands of people in many provinces. When he

thought of this, he felt more alarmed than pleased.

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But while on one had he felt uneasy when he learned from hearsay

on the streets that incense had been burnt and flowers offered

before the notice-board, on the other, he felt as happy as if he had

accomplished some great achievement. (111-112)

The story offers numerous allusions to Buddhism, including legends of

dragon ascensions and the calling on the name of the Amida, also known

as Amitābha. Numerous references are given about the actual historic locations

and the places where the story took place, including the Kōfukuji Temple,

Sakurai, Nara Province, The major Shinto shrine Kasuga Shrine, and many other

locations in the Nara area. In addition, the story gives references of the ancient

great annual processions of Kyoto, the then imperial Japanese capital.

It may well be imagined from the preceding account how

miserable Hanazo felt at this sight. But then a strange thing

happened, for Hanazo began to feel in his heart that a dragon was

really likely to ascend – at first, he began to feel that it might not

be impossible for a dragon to ascend. Of course, he was the author

of the notice-board, and he ought not to have entertained any such

absurd idea. But while he was looking at the surging of the

ceremonial headgear, he actually began to feel that some such

alarming event might happen.

This may have been because the excitement of the multitude of

people impressed Hanazo without his being aware of it. Or it may

be that he felt guilty when he thought over the fact that his trick

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caused such great general excitement, and that without being aware

of it, he began to desire in his heart, that a dragon should really

ascend from the pond. (116)

“The Dragon” makes one wonder about the power of suggestion and

belief in wanting the dragon to appear. It is very interesting, and perhaps

unintentionally a psychological study of what a group can convince themselves

to believe.

Nearly half a day had gone by since Hanazo had arrived there.

Then a streak of cloud like the smoke of a joss stick trailed in mid-

air. Suddenly it grew larger and larger, and the sky which had been

bright and clear became dusky. At that moment a gust of wind

swept down over the pond and ruffled the glassy surface of the

water into innumerable wave. Then in the twinkling of an eye,

white rain came down in torrents before the spectators, prepared as

they were, had time to scurry helter-skelter. Furthermore, terrific

claps of thunder suddenly pealed, and flashes of lightning flew past

one another like wefts of a fabric. Then hooked hands seemed to

tear apart a cluster of clouds, and in the excess of their force they

raised a spout of water over the pond. At that instant Hanazo’s

eyes caught a blurred vision of a black dragon more than one

hundred feet long ascending straight into the sky, with its golden

talons flashing. But this happened in a twinkling. After that, amidst

a storm, cherry blossoms around the pond were seen flying up into

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the dusky sky. It hardly need be said that the disconcerted

spectators, as they scurried away, formed waves of humanity

which surged like the waves in the pond.

Eventually the torrential rain stopped and a blue sky began to peep

through the clouds. Then Hanazo stared around him as if he had

forgotten his large nose. Was the figure of the dragon which he had

just seen an illusion? While he wondered, author of the notice-

board as he was, he began to feel that the dragon’s ascension was

impossible. Nevertheless, he did actually see it. So, the more he

thought over the event, the more mysterious it became.

Later Hanazo confessed that the notice-board had been his own

mischievous idea. But I am told none of his fellow-priests, not

even Emon, believed his confession. Now did his notice-board hit

the mark? Or did it miss? Ask Hanazo or Kurodo Tokugyo the Big

Nosed, and probably he himself will be unable to reply to this

question. (118-119)

Akutagawa through his stories offer a moralistic viewpoint, the stories

pose philosophical questions that encourage the reader to ponder the situations

presented and reassess his or her own values. What one gets to learn from the

stories of Akutagawa is that his writing style is never fixed. He could be infant

like, presenting his imagination of innocence with all that is make-belief; he could

write with a passion and fire that become serious and hot tempered; with delicacy,

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touching on the most concerning issues for his nation, for his people and for

himself; and opening his mind to other worlds and stories of hope and resolve.

It tells of a talented author who can show flexibility and a desire to explore

different writing styles and approaches. Akutagawa has thrown away any

pretense of self-indulgence; instead he has provided his tales with subtleties

displaying his great artistic attributes.

Osho says about the ultimate spiritual experience in his book Zen: The

Mystery and Poetry of the Beyond:

To become spiritual you have to go into your own depth, leaving

mind far behind. Let it dream, let it think, you simply watch. And

just watching is the greatest alchemy for transforming your being.

The more you become rooted in watching and witnessing…the

thoughts disappear, the dreams disappear, the mind is miles away

and you are left alone in utter silence, in peace. All the tensions,

anxieties, angst, are completely transformed into bliss, into ecstasy,

into blessings.

This is what Akutagawa did, go into his true self, delve deep into his inner

thoughts and bring forth his experiences in his works, which make us look at him

with sympathy and compassion.

The letter written as a suicide note prior to Akutagawa’s intended death

and later released to the mass media reads like:

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Probably no one who attempts suicide is fully aware of all his

motives, which are usually too complex. At least in my case it is

prompted by a vague sense of anxiety, a vague sense of anxiety

about my own future.

Over the last two years or so I have thought only of death, and with

special interest read a remarkable account of the process of death.

While the author did this in abstract terms, I will be as concrete as

I can, even to the point of sounding inhuman. At this point I am

duty bound to be honest. As for my vague sense of anxiety about

my own future, I think I analyzed it all in A Fool's Life, except for

a social factor, namely the shadow of feudalism cast over my life.

This I omitted purposely, not at all certain that I could really

clarify the social context in which I lived.

Once deciding on suicide (I do not regard it as a sin, as Westerners

do), I worked out the least painful means of carrying it out. Thus I

precluded hanging, shooting, leaping, and other manners of suicide

for aesthetic and practical reasons. Use of a drug seemed to be

perhaps the most satisfactory way. As for place, it had to be my

own house, whatever inconvenience to my surviving family. As a

sort of springboard I, as Kleist and Racine had done, thought of

some company, for instance, a lover or friend, but, having soon

grown confident of myself, I decided to go ahead alone. And the

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last thing I had to weigh was to insure perfect execution without

the knowledge of my family. After several months' preparation I

have at last become certain of its possibility.

We humans, being human animals, do have an animal fear of

death. The so-called vitality is but another name for animal

strength. I myself am one of these human animals. And this animal

strength, it seems, has gradually drained out of my system, judging

by the fact that I am left with little appetite for food and women.

The world I am now in is one of diseased nerves, lucid as ice. Such

voluntary death must give us peace, if not happiness. Now that I

am ready, I find nature more beautiful than ever, paradoxical as

this may sound. I have seen, loved, and understood more than

others. In this at least I have a measure of satisfaction, despite all

the pain I have thus far had to endure.

P.S. Reading a life of Empedocles, I felt how old is this desire to

make a god of oneself. This letter, so far as I am conscious, never

attempts this. On the contrary, I consider myself one of the most

common humans. You may recall those days of twenty years ago

when we discussed "Empedocles on Etna" - under the linden trees.

In those days I was one who wished to make a god of myself.

“Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be

receptive, to have no goal.” says Hermann Hesse in his book Siddhartha.

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Akutagawa through his characters tried to seek the meaning of his life, and

in the end freed himself from this worldly ties, with no goals, only freedom,

maybe freedom from the goal of not being able to seek his true meaning in life.

Akutagawa through his stories and writing inspires the readers to look into

the goodness in a person. This fact hits us when we look at the characters in the

stories of Akutagawa with sympathy, with compassion, as no person is without

fault. The characters portrayed in his stories have their weaknesses and

shortcomings, and only through compassionate feeling can we understand them,

which in turn help us in understanding the people, the society we live in, in a

better way.

Akutagawa says in Rashomon and Other Stories:

A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure

will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no

more than mere spectators of life.